September 24, 2007

Candidate John Edwards has given his big education speech, in which he says in effect that the President's job, Constitution be damned, is to run every public school in the country. (Just you wait, private schools and foreign countries, just you wait...) And that's not all! He's also going to send everybody to college.

In general, America's education policy makers, like school board members, state legislators, Senator Kennedy, President Bush, and Candidate Edwards give the strong impression that they are unable to understand simple cause and effect reasoning about issues of selection in education, and instead rely upon wishful thinking and sentimentalism to make up laws and regulations off the top of their heads.

Consider, for example, the dropout problem in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second largest.

In LA public high schools, 9th grade classes are typically twice the size of 12th grade classes because half the students drop out.

Bizarrely, the LA school board has decided to attempt to raise the graduation rate by making it harder to graduate. This year's 9th grade class will be the first to be required to pass not just Algebra I and Geometry to graduate, but now they also must pass Algebra II. At at least one high school, I am told, the entering 9th graders weren't informed about this new requirement, on the grounds that once they hear about it, many would likely give up and dropout right away.

In the LA school district, only 8-9%% of entering 9th graders will ever score 1000 or higher on the SAT (Math plus Verbal, not Writing) before they leave high school. By the way, that would be an 890 under the pre-1995 SAT scoring system.

The school board is also going to require an extra year of foreign language to graduate. This won't bother the Latinos all that much since Spanish is just about all they teach in LA anymore (there are only two German teachers left in the 700,000 student district), but will just hammer the graduation chances of African-Americans, who really dislike learning Spanish. For example, a lawyer who had been a protege of Johnnie Cochran told me in 2001 that only four out the 900 black LAPD officers speak Spanish.

The idea behind these changes is to make sure that LAUSD graduates are qualified to attend the elite University of California system, by requiring more of what UC calls A-G courses. Yet, by law, the UC system is reserved for the top 1/8th of California high school students. (The California State University system is aimed at the top 1/3rd, and the Community College system is open to everybody else.)

But, then, who cares about the other 7/8ths? I mean, why does anybody have to be in the lower 7/8ths? If we just stopped succumbing to the soft bigotry of low expectations, everybody could be part of the top 1/8th!

In reality, what we need are high school diplomas that are like the Oxford/Cambridge diplomas, where you take a big test at the end and are awards a First, Second, Third, or Pass degree. We have a lot of students for whom getting a Third in high school would be a major accomplishment, a goal for which they could strive, and just getting a Pass degree would at least represent to potential employers that they are reasonably tractable.

The post's title is a reference to the Simpsons episode Treehouse of Horror VII, in which Kang, who is pretending to be Bob Dole, attempts to take a couple of positions that do not satisfy the entire public. With alacrity, he then promises stuff to multiple constiuencies:

Kang: Abortions for all.

[crowd boos]

Very well, no abortions for anyone.

[crowd boos]

Hm. Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others!

[crowd cheers and several people wave little flags]

We'll push the US to the front of the pack internationally by increasing the complexity and depth of the curriculum AND we'll simultaneously increase the material mastery rate to 100%, maybe even 110%.

Why would Edwards be so foolish as to work toward only one of these two so noble goals? We need a President with vision--vision!--the only thing that matters, really.

"You say that a small amount of 9th graders get at least 1000 on the SAT...but why is this an informative statistic when most people end up taking it in 11th or 12th grade?"

I meant that if 1000 students enter an LAUSD high school as 9th graders, only about 80 of them will ever score over 1000 or higher. The percentage of 11th or 12th graders who score that high is higher, but that's because so many have dropped out already.

"where you take a big test at the end and are awards a First, Second, Third, or Pass degree."

Generally we do things this way at school as well. GCSEs and A-Levels serve pretty much the same purpose as high school diplomas.

The GCSE is the qualification that replaced the GCE O-Level. GCSE stands for "General Certificate of Secondary Education" and these are roughly equivalent to a high school diploma except each GCSE is in one subject and is taken at the end of Year Eleven. A decent student will probably take ten or more GCSEs.

A-Levels are "Advanced Levels" and are taken at school sixth forms (Years 12 and 13) or further education colleges. The A levels act as the primary quality screen for university admissions. You would probably study four for the first year of study and the continue with three for the second year. However I understand that at some independent schools the most able students will take five.

Both of these qualifcations are graded using letters. A-C is a pass for a GCSE and A-E is a pass for an A-Level. Of course with anything less than three Cs at A-level you're unlikely to get into anything other than a very low quality university such as Edge Hill or Thames Valley.

How do American employers distinguish between those with only high school diplomas and no experience?

Hey, Steve: Mexicanization is going to drag us down into...uh...a Mexican state of affairs. 1+1=2. Big surprise for liberals.

It's sickening to think of the staff in a place like the L.A. Times (or the LAUSD) celebrating each step toward Mexicanization over the past 20 years -- while at the same time the reporters or teachers trickle out the door for a greener pastures. The same reporters are now hyping latino "vibrancy" in places like Minnesota and Iowa just as they did in SoCal. Many of these creeps are angry Jewish guys getting their Frankfurt School rocks off, or plain old white chicks playing earth goddess to the brown masses.

It's so empowering to give a white country away to the exotic first generation of docile, downtrodden foreigners. But when the next angry, dysfunctional generation of Americanized, gang-banging dead-enders appears, the whites get bored and frustrated by the lack of progress (latinos don't read books, plus they're anti-gay and anti-abortion).

You have noted this dynamic many times of course. But it seems the core problem here is matriarchy. Matriarchy kills a society as sure as a neutron bomb. Men have kept women out of positions of power throughout history as a survival tactic. Matriarchy bring chaos and downfall. Because women, as a group, will give away the store -- in a fit of altruism and/or biological impulse to introduce outsider males into the mix.

The historical record of civilization is a record of trial and error i.e. what actually works. The historical record demonstrates that matriarchy, wherever it may briefly appear, is quickly swallowed by surrounding patriarchy. And that is our current reality. This is the ancient wisdom that we are relearning the hard way.

OK, I gotta get back to my headphones, my illegally downloaded music collection, and my Xbox.

Steve’s proposal for awarding H.S. diplomas with First, Second, Third and Pass may be a step in the right direction, but I doubt it will be politically palatable. Talk about the pervasive racism of low expectations, now you want to label our kids 2nd, 3rd or, God forbid, merely passable?

With California’s shifting demographics, I’m expecting something of a Tom Hayden redux of his “automatic H.S. diplomas for everyone so no ones left out” idea. I’m not sure if you’ll even have to attend class, perhaps just turning 18yrs will qualify you for a H.S. diploma like it does for voting. After all, uneducated truants need to find good paying jobs in federal, state and local government like everyone else to become productive taxpaying citizens.

Regarding the Brit’s question on differentiating inexperienced H.S. graduates in job interviews, I suspect this is such a low threshold that reading ones attitude and asking a few well-poised questioned in the interview will suss out the bad apples. That and looking for meth-teeth and heroin tracks.

Steve Sailer:I meant that if 1000 students enter an LAUSD high school as 9th graders, only about 80 of them will ever score over 1000 or higher. The percentage of 11th or 12th graders who score that high is higher, but that's because so many have dropped out already.

A few points:

1) You might want to edit your original blog post to reflect that.

2) Do you have a source for the statistic?

3) Only 8% acheiving a [modern] 1000 [classical 890] on the SAT is just more proof of a point that I was getting lambasted for on some previous threads around here: From a STATISTICAL point of view, Blacks & [aboriginal/mestizo] Hispanics are incapable of contributing to a modern, high-tech economy [or to any "economy", really, when you get right down to it].

Yes, there are outliers, but there are so few of those outliers that, from a PURELY STATISTICAL point of view, the outliers do not exist.

That Oxford is a racket. It only takes three years to get a Bachelors. There are no US-style curriculum distribution requirements. Best of all-- four years after you graduate, if you send Oxford a check, they'll mail back a Masters degree, I kid you not:

"The degree of Master of Arts is awarded to B.A.s and B.F.A.s twenty-one terms (seven years) after matriculation, without further examination, upon the payment of a nominal fee."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrees_of_the_University_of_Oxford

How do American employers distinguish between those with only high school diplomas and no experience?

First of all, most HS graduates who don't go on to college have at least some part-time work experience. Without that, the graduate will not be able to get a job above the most menial level unless they have connections.

From the employer's perspective, then, you would check the references from the part-time jobs the student had had and otherwise base your decision on how the applicant presented himself on the interview.

The use of HS grades in the way you imply that British employers use GCSE grades would be, in most cases, fruitless because grading levels vary so much from school to school. However, a student with a high grade-point average from a well-regarded high school AND a reasonable explanation for why he wasn't using those good grades to get into college would certainly have a leg up over other inexperienced applicants who graduated from poor schools.

Pat Buchanan, who is very good on horse-race stuff, says that Edwards & Romney have spent roughly the same amounts in Iowa & NH, yet Romney is far ahead in both states for different reasons. Pat sees Edwards as already in a downward spiral, and SC, where John-boy was born, has Edwards third behind Hillary & Obama.

John gets votes from either ultra-left elitist Hollyweirdos or people who like his looks & delivery. After his hedge fund fiasco & his wife's continual interruptions, John-E is already a flawed vesicle---I mean vessel!

I don't think Edwards has any intention of trying to make public schools live up to that soaring rhetoric, which an intelligent man like him realizes is impossible.

What he is doing is singaling that he favors more spending on public education. I don't think that is bad policy, especially since public (and private) schools no longer are subsidized in their labor costs by being one of the few career paths along with nursing that are open to intelligent women.

No need to call out Edwards in particular, given that it is standard fare for politicians from all regions and both parties, everyone from Lamar Alexander and Jeb Bush to Elliot Spitzer and Jim Hunt.

Funding for vocational education, by the way, was one of the first things the Republicans cut out of the budget when they took over Congress in 1995.

"Best of all-- four years after you graduate, if you send Oxford a check, they'll mail back a Masters degree, I kid you not:

'The degree of Master of Arts is awarded to B.A.s and B.F.A.s twenty-one terms (seven years) after matriculation, without further examination, upon the payment of a nominal fee.'"

I suspect, however, that smary British employers know this and adjust their expectations accordingly. In the same article you linked to, it says that the major Scottish universities do not even have a B.A. but grant the M.A. immediately upon graduation. Surely those raised in the Scottish culture must be aware of this fact.

"It's so empowering to give a white country away to the exotic first generation of docile, downtrodden foreigners. But when the next angry, dysfunctional generation of Americanized, gang-banging dead-enders appears, the whites get bored and frustrated by the lack of progress (latinos don't read books, plus they're anti-gay and anti-abortion)."

You mention "the next angry, dysfunctional generation of Americanized, gang-banging dead-enders." (emphasis mine) This suggests that as immigrants become more assimilated, they become more anti-social. And indeed, this has been backed up by all, not some, but ALL, of the evidence from the social sciences. So the problem seems to be not immigration per se, but assimilation. So it it seems that, rather than bashing poor brown folk, we should be reexamining our own culture and trying to reform it. In the mean time, we can warn immigrants not to adopt the self-destructive, pathological tendencies of the dominant group, i.e., us.

As Pogo, paraphrasing Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, said: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

... and SC, where John-boy was born, has Edwards third behind Hillary & Obama ... his wife's continual interruptions

Astounding that Edwards would allow his wife to play bad cop in a campaign, and then show approval by letting it happen more than once.

The nation is fighting a war. And Edwards great "legal mind" can't figure out that he needs to at least pretend to tack to the center and demonstrate that he can fight his own fights and lead men during wartime? Especially to his home crowd in SC? Maybe it doesn't take so much smarts to be a lawyer after all.

The Republican Party and Conservatives always are telling us that education is the solution to the economic security of American citizens in the climate of globalization and outsourcing, and shrinking paychecks.

But this is a solution for only the top 20% who are smart enough to get advanced degrees in science, computers and so on. Not everyone is smart enough to write code, or do advanced research in a biotech company. In fact, most of us can't.

It's not only a problem for the underclass, but a problem for the middle class as well.

The solution is not education, but abandoning the myth of globalization and the "new" economy that obviously is leaving the majority of kids on the outside.

Higher education doesn't mean business or marketing degrees, of which most middle class kids are getting into. It means science and math.

Not all immigrants assimilate toward negative standards. Immigrants tend to assimilate to the norm of their ethnic group. While Hispanics from Mexico usually fall into the low standards of previous generations (low education, high criminality, welfare, etc), SE Asian Indians are the wealthiest ethnic group even above the levels of natives. Beyond differences between intrinsic capabilities like IQ and cultural values (hard work, education, success, etc), American immigration works to select for the best/brightest from India and the poorest/lowest class from Mexico exaggerating such differences.

The problem is only partly to do with American culture. Plenty of immigrant ethnic groups have done well in America by selectively adopting the best of America and keeping parts of their own cultures (Jews, Asians, Indians, Europeans, etc). Other immigrant ethnics have done relatively poorly (Mexicans, Hmong, Laotian, Polynesians, Haitians, etc). The bigger problem lies in the capabilities and cultures immigrants bring to America.

That Oxford is a racket. It only takes three years to get a Bachelors. There are no US-style curriculum distribution requirements. Best of all-- four years after you graduate, if you send Oxford a check, they'll mail back a Masters degree, I kid you not:

"The degree of Master of Arts is awarded to B.A.s and B.F.A.s twenty-one terms (seven years) after matriculation, without further examination, upon the payment of a nominal fee."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrees_of_the_University"

An MA(Oxon) is clearly not a graduate degree and no one mistakes it for such. Aside from post degree experience and the like an Oxbridge MA would be treated no differently than a BA(hons) with the same honours classification and from the same institution. The Oxbridge MA is a traditional thing. It used to be that in the midle ages a student entered seven years of study to acheive a Master of Arts.

As for the three years of study compared to four. Those three years will be focussed on one or two subjects, allwowing a far greater depth and breadth of study within that subject than is possible in your system of "curriculum distribution". We also don't waste our time with "pre-med" and "pre-law" programmes.

We do have four year undergraduate masters, but those are in one one subject as well. Eg. MPhys, MEng, MChem, and MMath.

Joe Populist:But this is a solution for only the top 20% who are smart enough to get advanced degrees in science, computers and so on. Not everyone is smart enough to write code, or do advanced research in a biotech company. In fact, most of us can't.

If you're really talking about "science, computers and so on", then the numbers are in the low single digits [2%, maybe 3%].

If you throw in the lesser disciplines, like medicine, or law, then you might get up towards the high single digits.

But there's no way in Hades that "20%" of Americans are gonna be employed as true "knowledge workers".

By the way, that's Caucasians or Pacific Rim Asians we are talking about - they're lucky if single digits' worth of their children can get work as serious "knowledge workers".

As I indicated above, for Blacks & aboriginal/mestizo Hispanics, the numbers are going to be essentially non-existent.

For Blacks, I think you're talking about two or three one hundredths of one percent - i.e a couple of kids out of every ten thousand - so that if a typical high school class had 500 students graduating every year, then 20 black high schools would produce two or three kids every year who are even capable of being productive as "knowledge workers".

Now whether they would in fact choose a life in the "knowledge" business, or would instead choose to pursue something a little more lucrative - well, who knows?

I.e. if one or two them decide to do something easier, like getting a Bachelor's in Business, or Econ, and then pursuing a career as a suit, then very quickly you're down to not many more than zero of them in the "knowledge" bidness.

Studies going back over 50 years have repeatedly arrived at the same conclusion -- racists have lower IQs than non-racists. The average intelligence quotient (IQ) of all members of the human race is 100 on the Stanford-Binet scale, as illustrated in the bell curves in the figure below. The average IQ of racists is up to 4 IQ points less than this (Montagu 1952 & 1988, Allport 1946, Frenkel-Brunswick and Sanford 1945). The reasons this is true are not entirely clear. Does racism attract the unintelligent or do the unintelligent default into racist mentalities? An exploration of this phenomenon can be most informative.

Since the average IQ of a racist is less than the average, racists have two-digit IQs, while normal people have three-digit IQs, on the average. This applies to Nazi skinheads, American Nazis, the oxymoronic Aryan supremacists, Christian Identity fanatics, anti-semites, non-denominational bigots, and other such social rejects. The figure above is based on a standard deviation of 10, and is normalized for matching populations.

Many studies have explored the psychology of racism and the familial and social backgrounds of racists. Some interesting generalities can be extracted from these studies, including the fact that racists tend to be conservatives, conformists, Republicans, and hypochondriacs. The high incidence of conservatism, conformism, and Republicanism are all related phenomena. That is, one would expect a conformist to be a conservative, and a conservative to be a Republican, and a Republican to be a conformist, etc. But, why would they tend to be hypochondriacs? Perhaps they blame their body parts for imaginary illnesses in the same way they blame parts of society for imaginary social illnesses.

The arguments of racism have been demonstrated time and again to be illogical and irrational. For example, racists claim that so-called white people are "superior" to so-called black people. Ignoring for the moment the inability of science to draw a sharp line between those who are subjectively considered to be white and those who are subjectively considered to be black, lets consider the claims of superiority by racist supremacists.

As we look around us in America today we see a country full of diversity in which American blacks and other citizens of non-European descent excel in all the arts and sciences, in all aspects of business, in all political arenas, and in all athletics and other social activities. From our military commanders, to our religious and political leaders, to our star athletes both Olympic and professional, to our fastest-growing independent businesses, and in all genres of the entertainments fields -- art, music, acting, directing, film-making, etc. -- we witness a growing disproportionate dominance of non-whites, and this in spite of centuries of oppression and the continued denial of equal opportunities. Their successes are undeniable and ubiquitous, and yet the racists of our times act as if they are completely blind to this manifest proof that superiority of whites is a dying mirage.

Figure 2 shows how prejudice tends to be a function of parents' college education. Obviously the more educated the parents are, the less likely their children are to become prejudiced. Again we see a correlation of both intelligence and education with normality, while the lack of education and intelligence is associated with bigotry.

Figure 1 shows the percentage of each gender that tends towards racism, based on a study by Allport and Kramer in 1946. This chart is unlikely to surprise anyone for a number of reasons. First, women are, in general, more sociable and not inclined to be aggressive. Males, on the other hand, tend to seek outlets for aggression, and racism is a convenient one. Males, furthermore, have a higher incidence of idiocy and mental deficiency than do females. That is, females tend to be more normal than males and are less inclined to both mental extremes and behavioral extremes.

Racists wear horse's blinders at the sight of the media heroes of our age -- Muhammed Ali, Martin Luther King, Michael Jordan, Condoleeza Rice, the Williams sisters, Tiger Woods, Barry Bonds, Colin Powell, Janet and LaToya Jackson, Sidney Poiter and Samuel Jackson, Sammy Sosa, Michael Johnson, the list goes on endlessly. They are deaf to the sound of world records regularly being shattered. They are dumb in their speech when asked to explain such obvious contradictions. Are racists deaf, dumb, and blind, or are they simply of such limited intelligence that they cannot recognize the truth when it is placed in bright lights before them?

Figure 3 shows the variation of prejudice as measured among the college students of different majors in 1946. Obviously the Natural Sciences seem to protect against the false beliefs of racism better than the Liberal Arts. Why this should be is unclear, and may have more to do with the type of students who are attracted to Natural Science, which is considered a more challenging major.

Let's consider some examples of what passes for intelligence in the sub-society of what is truly an oxymoron, Aryan supremacy. Even the word "Aryan" is itself a mockery of the truth. The Aryan race doesn't exist, and has never existed. It is a myth invented by the Nazis to promote politically expedient propaganda. Hitler himself admitted that he knew there never were any Aryans, and that the notion merely served Nazi purposes, no more. All Aryan supremacists stand naked in the light of truth, but are unable to comprehend the fact that they have no clothes. Is it due to mentally deficiency, or are they really aware of this false myth? It's hard to say for sure, but their limited intelligence is certainly a factor in their confusion.

Figure 4 illustrates the fact that prejudice is acquired at a young age. The mean age for the onset of prejudice is about 12. This is a most impressionable age and is the appropriate time to educate the young and immunize them against hatred for life. They should be told everything science knows about race and everything history tells us about racism.

In America's war against terrorism, we should not forget about the domestic terrorists that have sprouted in our own backyard. Nazis, skinheads, and other bigots are anti-American by their very nature. If America is a nation of all races, religions, and cultures, then the enemies of any of those races, religions, and cultures are enemies of America. The attempts on the part of Nazi skinheads and the KKK to intimidate or encourage acts of violence against innocent people because of their race or creed is terrorism by definition. Once al Qaeda has been shut down, it would be prudent to focus America's attention on cleaning up all the nests of racist extremists that are festering inside our own borders. They are all just terrorists waiting to commit an act against Americans.

Some of the more radical anti-racist groups say that the only way to change a racist's mind is with a shotgun blast to the head. We at SAYAR disagree that violence is a proper response to what is essentially a mental disease. We believe that education is the key to erasing racism, and that this could be accomplished within the space of a single generation if we simply show children the light of truth, and dispel the darkness of ignorance.

But what about trying to reform the inner city culture so that it values education? Boys in that culture do much worse than the girls, I don't think anyone here would offer a biological explanation for that, so at a minimum focusing on the culture could eliminate the gender gap. Eliminating the gender gap would allow the reformation of inner city families. And I don't think anyone denies that the gaps in education are at least partially explained by dysfunctional family arrangements.

Even if you think that innate differences explain part of the gap, that doesn't mean they explain all of the differences. And it seems that it is a) in society's interest and b) society's obligation to try to change the things that can be changed.

Studies going back over 50 years have repeatedly arrived at the same conclusion -- racists have lower IQs than non-racists. The average intelligence quotient (IQ) of all members of the human race is 100 on the Stanford-Binet scale, as illustrated in the bell curves in the figure below. The average IQ of racists is up to 4 IQ points less than this (Montagu 1952 & 1988, Allport 1946, Frenkel-Brunswick and Sanford 1945). The reasons this is true are not entirely clear. Does racism attract the unintelligent or do the unintelligent default into racist mentalities? An exploration of this phenomenon can be most informative.

Well, at least you aren't disputing the validity of IQ. I have to give you points there.

How do you change self-destructive black culture from the outside? You can't. The few people on the inside like Bill Cosby who try to constructively raise the issue are shouted down as Uncle Toms.

Mulatto kids abandoned by their Black fathers, raised by their White mothers generally end up more strongly identifying with Black culture. Even if you physically remove Black babies/kids from dismal inner city futures and adopt them out to safe, affluent white suburbs, the pervasive poisonous black popular culture often seems to negatively affect them.

With clowns like Jessie Jackson and Rev Al whipping up the ignorant masses, it seems pretty hopeless.

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